


My Songbird Can Sing

by DjDangerLove



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Buried Alive, Gil Arroyo Acting as Malcolm Bright's Parental Figure, Good Parent Gil Arroyo, Good Parent Jackie Arroyo, Hurt/Comfort, Malcolm Bright Gets the Arroyos and That's Better Than a Hug, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug, reposted after I deleted it months ago
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:20:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26127916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DjDangerLove/pseuds/DjDangerLove
Summary: Bright gets buried alive, but Jackie Arroyo keeps him company until her husband can find their kid.
Relationships: Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright, Gil Arroyo/Jackie Arroyo, Jackie Arroyo & Malcolm Bright
Kudos: 48





	My Songbird Can Sing

His breath comes like the flap of bird wings of one trying to land. Erratic and all at once, then nothing at all. 

Jackie used to call him her little songbird. It didn’t make sense to Malcolm, not at first. For a boy who could only use his voice to scream at the things in the dark, the name didn’t fit. Gil seemed unable to connect the dots as well so one morning while the three of them sat around the small bistro table in the sunroom the man glanced around his newspaper and asked his wife, “Honey, I think it’s safe to say the kid is just as confused as I am on the nickname you’ve given him, so why don’t you give us a clue?”

Jackie had taken the jam from Malcolm’s quivering hands as he’d passed it to her like she’d asked and smiled, “Well, just because he isn’t using his words doesn’t mean he isn’t saying anything. You say an awful lot don’t you, Malcolm?”

The boy blinked at her and she elaborated, “Like when we paint together, your pictures tell quite the story. Or when we read together in the front room and you point to sentence you want us to read again because it stands out to you. Or…when you wake up from a nightmare and your heartbeat is flying so fast but then we sit with you, talk you through it, remind you that you never have to be scared when you’re with us because we’ll always protect you and your heartbeat slows down. 

“You see, Malcolm talks to us a lot just not in a way that every one understands. Like a songbird. Some people know how to tell what a bird call means, some people haven’t a clue at all.”

Gil had smiled at his wife, gently ruffled Malcolm’s hair and agreed, but never called him Songbird. Bright was kind of glad, to be honest. It was such a little thing, but it had been their _little thing_. Like stake outs and star gazing had been a special thing between Gil and Malcolm, he and Jackie had puzzles, paintings and songbirds.

He thinks that’s partially why he’s not panicking. Bright has never done well in small, enclosed spaces and given the fact that he’s currently buried in one six feet underground, he should be freaking the hell out. But he isn’t, because he thinks of the way Jackie used to curl around him after a nightmare and lay her hand over his heart, shushing him until it slowed. He can almost smell her perfume over the odor of pine, sweat, and dirt. He can almost feel her long strands of ebony hair tickling the side of his face.

Somewhere deep down he knows the current calm he’s feeling isn’t good, but there’s few things in his life that ever are so he gives in to her slender fingers, calloused from pottery making and tending to gardens all her life, drumming against his chest.

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

_“My sweet little songbird with so much to say.”_

His heart flutters again like bird wings taking off in flight at the memory of her voice. He breathes once, the dirt from Jackie’s garden getting caught in his throat. 

_“Tell me everything tomorrow, because tomorrow is my favorite day.”_

He tries to curl into her, wants to feel the soft knit of her pajamas against his feverish skin, but his knees hit the wood paneling of the box reminding him that he’s confined to today.

“P-please,” he whispers although it shakes his tomb. “Please, don’t leave me, Jackie.”

_“Why is tomorrow my favorite day, you ask?”_

“I…I won’t make it.”

_“Because tomorrow, my little songbird, I’ll get to hear you sing about everything we did today.”_

“I’m…I’m going to die today,” he tells her and feels her fingers halt across his chest. She feels cold where she never did before and he finds it harder to breathe.

_“You’ll sing your song for me and then another today we’ll make.”_

“Promise y-you won’t ..leave.”

_”People will hear us, my little songbird. Me and you, and our bird named Gil, too.”_

“I wish he were here,” Bright whimpers, realizing he’s never had to so before.The man has always been there like a safe place to land for a loud little songbird in a deaf world. 

_”They’ll hear about all our fun times and even the times we’re sad.”_

“I-I never meant to make you sad.”

_“But most importantly, my little songbird”,_

Her hand lays atop his chest, her _tap, tap , tap_ ceasing along with his heart.

_”They’ll hear about how much we love you.”_

—————

He comes to in the soft golden glow of lamp lights on a bedside table. They’re brighter than the ones at the Arroyo house, but Gil is sitting beside his bed all the same. His large hand _pat, pat, patting_ on top of his chest, fingers barely lifting before being brought back down. The lamp creates a glare across his reading glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose as he stares down at a familiar copy of _Charlotte’s Web_ . 

He feels his eyes water at what he’d thought was the long lost book, feels the tears slide down his face at how well-kept it looks and the effort Gil made to keep it that way. The man must feel his emotions underneath drumming fingertips for they come to a halt as the man glances away from the story. 

“Hey, kid,” Gil whispers, standing only to sit down on the edge of the bed. His hand stays against Bright’s chest, but he moves it side to side in time with the wet chuckle that escapes him. “It’s good to see you.”

“Likewise,” Malcolm tries to agree, but his throat still feels like it’s clogged with Jackie’s garden soil. Gil helps him sip some water, after carefully setting the book aside, and nods, “Yeah, you’re voice is going to be pretty rough for a while.”

He doesn’t have to say that it’s because Bright had at some point tried to scream for help while buried underground so he doesn’t. Instead, he reaches for the book again and says, “I hope you don’t mind. Been reading it to you all night since they got you settled here.When we found you…you were unconscious but they roused you in the ambulance on the way here.”

Bright blinks at him, takes in how much older Gil looks than he ever remembers.

“You were talking to…Jackie. Asking for me. I think trying to say that little poem she wrote about the songbird.”

Bright swallows despite the pain it causes, tries to clench his fists to stop his hands from shaking but they’re too bandaged to squeeze them tight. He pushes away memory flashes of clawing at unmovable pine. 

“I…heard her…or at least…remembered her saying it to me while…”

Gil smiles, although it looks just as painful as Bright’s hands feel. “I figured. That’s why I had Dani bring me this. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell her why and she won’t ask.”

“I miss her,” Bright says with a waver in his hoarse voice that lets Gil know he’s not talking about Dani. He thinks it’s unfair to say, knows that he couldn't possibly miss her more that Gil ever has. 

However, the man pats Bright’s chest again, his hospital gown wrinkling beneath it. “Me too, kid, but it’s okay to miss her. Easier if we miss her together. You can always talk to me, you know, about anything, but especially her. She was like a second mother to you.”

Bright reaches for the book in Gil’s other hand, the pages shake between his fingers as he thumbs through them, “She was a second mother to me.” He flips to the back, stops when he sees Jacki’s cursive handwriting in black ink. “She made me a background character in Charlotte’s Web. She should have won mother of the year.”

“I remember the night.”

“You do?” Bright genuinely asks, thinking that was one of the few nights Gil had to work a double and couldn’t be home. 

“Yeah, I came home early, and went to check on you but Jackie was already in there sitting with you on the bed. I stayed out in the hall…Jackie loved being there for you, being able to comfort you. I loved listening to her try. She told you that being her little songbird you could be in Charlotte’s Web. A bird in the barn that sometimes needed protecting from the mean old farmer, or sometimes being the one to protect Wilbur.”

“That I was capable of being both and that was okay,” Bright smiles while brushing a hand across the faded ink. He starts to read through it in his head, but soon hears Gil’s voice reading along with him even though he can’t see the page.

“My sweet little songbird with so much to say.  
Tell me everything tomorrow, because tomorrow is my favorite day.  
Why is tomorrow my favorite day, you ask?  
Because tomorrow, my little songbird, I’ll get to hear you sing about everything we did today.”

Gil smiles at him, eyes crinkled at the corners and wet in between.

“You’ll sing your song for me and then another today we’ll make.  
People will hear us, my little songbird.   
Me and you, and our bird named Gil, too.  
They’ll hear about all our fun times and even the times we’re sad.  
But most importantly, my little songbird,  
They’ll hear about how much we love you.”

Bright has to look away from the man that was his father in all ways but blood and glances down at the fresher ink at the bottom of the page. It hadn’t been there the last time he’d seen the book and it’s not in Jackie’s handwriting. Instead, it sits well-inked in black and blocky lettering, but it’s still the ending to the poem Jackie had made from him all those years ago. 

He doesn’t need to read it though, because Gil still finishes it even as he closes the book and sets it on the table.

“So sing loud, my little songbird  
Or don’t sing at all.  
Because no matter how far away you fly  
We’ll always, always answer your call.”

“How did you know that last part?”

Gil’s mouth quirks up at the corner. “Small confession. One of the days you went to see your father, Jackie was worried sick. You hadn’t had a good week and she really didn’t want you to go, but we couldn’t stop you so while she was stress-planting out in the garden, I found the book. I knew she would read it to you that night since it was a rough day, so I wrote that last bit in there as message to both of you.”

“That you’d always be there no matter what.”

Gil nods and tousles Bright’s hair gently, “Jackie may have been the one to call you her little songbird, but you’ll always be mine, too.”


End file.
